She moaned in delight as he shifted her in his arms, till she lay across him, supported by his cradling arm against the door, the steering wheel containing them, tight to each other.
He went on kissing her. She heard the trilling of crickets, the soft cries of the birds—and her own breath, coming hard and uneven, catching now and then on a hungry sigh.
She said his name, “Beau…” and she gasped in wonder as his hand found her breast, molding it, claiming it. He lifted his head to look down at her. She moaned and his fingers were quick, undoing the little buttons down the front of her lace-trimmed shirt.
He peeled the two sides of the shirt away, laying it open to reveal her breasts, pale as milk in the starlight, swelling from her satin bra. He cradled one, then pressed his palm flat against the nipple. It drew up inside the cup of her bra, so hard and tight and aching. She arched her back and cried his name once more.
His mouth found hers again, demanding and hot, as his hand strayed around to her back. She turned into him with a moan, losing the hungry hold of his lips, giving him easier access to the clasp of her bra. It gave in an instant and the bra fell loose.
She sighed. “Oh,” she whispered, “oh, yes…”
With a hungry cry, she lifted her mouth to his. They kissed some more, long and deep and wet, as he guided the bra and the shirt off one arm. He urged her up. She let go of his mouth yet another time, long enough to get clear of the steering wheel and struggle out of the shirt, to peel the bra down her other arm and toss them both to the floorboards.
“So beautiful,” he whispered, “Always so beautiful—so beautiful it hurts…” She lay back in his arms and he bent his golden head.
He took her breast in his mouth, softly circling her nipple with his tongue, then catching it lightly between his teeth, holding it there, worrying it, his tongue flicking and licking…
She clutched his head and cried out and his hand strayed along the bare skin over her rib cage, moving around to the front of her, pausing at her navel, searching…
He found the tiny platinum ring she wore there and gave it a tug. She moaned and felt him smile against her breast before he again sucked her nipple in and toyed with it some more.
His rough-tender fingers danced lower, unsnapping the front of her jeans, guiding the zipper down. It made a low, sizzling sound as it parted. She cradled his silky head, pulled him tighter into her, urging him to suck all the harder….
Below, his fingers slipped in, under her satin panties. He swallowed her cries of need as he petted the nest of curls down there…
Gently, insistently, he guided her legs a little apart, so he could dip a finger between the slick folds.
She was on fire by then, writhing against him, clutching his shoulders, wanting his lips on hers. He raised his mouth from her breast and he kissed her—a deep, never-ending kiss….
His finger dipped lower still, easing inside of her, his knuckles hindered a little by the rough cover of her tight jeans. She moaned into his mouth and felt her own body clutch around him, felt the shocking liquid slide as he moved his finger in and out.
“Tight,” he muttered against her mouth. “So tight, so wet…”
Should she have stopped him, or at least slowed things up a little? Should they have talked, so he’d know?
Yeah, she should have.
But what she should have done meant nothing. Not right then. Right then, her mind was a frantic fog of starved yearning. And in her deepest heart, in the place where she was all woman, she had always known. Always. That it would be Beau. Even when she’d thought she hated him, she’d known he would be the one.
She whispered, “You, Beau…only you…”
And after that, it got fast and furious and frantic—and awkward, too, as he took her shoulders, guided her around, pushed her back to the passenger side, shifting himself so he could grab her jeans and her panties, slithering them down. They were boot-cut jeans, but still they got snagged on her impractical kitten-heeled boots, so he levered back fast and unzipped the boots, yanking them off, one and then the other. They dropped with twin knocking sounds against the floor. He tossed her jeans and panties down there after them.
He ripped off his own shirt, threw it down, undid his Wranglers, shoved them out of the way. That brought her up short—when she saw him. He was so big and thick, kind of silky-looking, standing out straight from a shadowy nest of hair. She blinked—but she wasn’t giving up on this.
Oh, no. She had been waiting. Waiting so long…
In her mind was that long-ago afternoon in the barn before Tess interrupted them and everything went wrong. She could almost hear the far-off whinny of one of the horses out in the pasture in back, could faintly smell the ripe scent of the hay bale they leaned against, sharpened with the dryness of dust. Her body thrummed with the thrill of his body so close, so hungry for her….
It was the same now: the urgency. The feeling of rightness. The delicious thrill of apprehension for what would come next.
She lay back along the seat, her head bumping the armrest.
She shut her eyes….
And steeled herself for the pain.
But it didn’t come. He had paused, there, between her open legs. She dared to stop squeezing her eyes shut and peeked up at him.
He was so fine to look at, silvered in the starlight that filled the cab. She relaxed a little, just at the purely male sight of him, his chest broad and strong, dusted with the same gold hair that grew below his washboard belly, his arms corded with muscle, and his face…oh, he looked at her as if she was the only woman on earth.
Mine, she thought. Always. Mine….
Scars marred the golden perfection of his skin—white puckering ones. Some were slice-marks, thin and ridged, some were round—those ranged in size, some very small, some as big as a nickel. She’d seen the scars before, but in daylight all those years ago, when she’d caught him with his shirt off. He’d been hauling bags of feed into the barn. She’d lured him deeper into the shadows where no one would see them.
And she’d asked him why his chest and back were scarred up so bad.
She could still recall his answer. “From things that cut—and from things that burn.”
“But who would do that?”
He’d given a low, mean-sounding laugh. “You musta never met my daddy. And don’t worry, you never will. He’s been dead for a while. But then, there’s still my brothers, T.J. and Lyle…”
Lyle was dead too, now. Stabbed in a prison-yard scuffle four years ago. T.J. was still living—at the moment. He had his own private cell on death row down at Rawlins. He’d been out of prison a week—after serving his time for rustling Rising Sun cattle—when he shot a police officer during the commission of a gas-station robbery.
Now, in the starlight, the cruel marks on Beau’s body had a strange, pale kind of beauty. In their whiteness, they almost seemed to glow. She reached up, traced a long, thin one that ran from his shoulder almost to his elbow.
Before she reached the base of that scar, he moved his arm away, out from under her touch, and sat back on his folded-under legs, wide shoulders slumping. “It shouldn’t be like this,” he whispered, his voice rough with conflicting emotions: deepest regret—burning desire. “In this old pickup…”
At first, she felt embarrassment, lying there all spread out and naked except for a pair of thin socks. She pulled her knees together and crossed her arms over her bare breasts. But then her heart kind of…opened, at the pure hunger and yearning, the real need in his eyes. She felt that same need….
With a cry, she reached up, beckoning.
He levered himself over her, still up on his knees, but close enough now that she could stroke his cheek. He moved his head, his mouth sliding into the cove of her palm, pressing a kiss there. “You want to stop? Say so…”
But she didn’t say anything. Somehow, she couldn’t. She could only look up at him and wish for his mouth to settle on hers again. She could only long for what
was so close, for the feel of his hot, strong body pressing her down.
She had some vague idea that they wouldn’t quite make love all the way, that she’d gently whisper her secret before it got to that. Even then, somewhere in some logical corner of her mind, she knew she was telling herself one whopping lie. She was all but naked, one bare thigh to either side of his lean hips. There was nothing, not one single layer of fabric between the cove of her sex and his ready manhood. Nothing but the darkness, the mild summer-night air.
She knew they weren’t going to stop—but she told herself that somehow they would, anyway.
He began to stroke her body, one hand on each thigh, his palms trailing up, over the sides of her waist, along the curves over her rib cage, to the sides of her breasts and back down again. He caressed her belly, both hands moving in and then brushing back down again to the tops of her thighs. He bent his golden head and lightly nipped her navel ring, taking it between his teeth for one sharp little tug.
She squirmed and called his name some more, her voice strange, low and guttural, to her own ears. His mouth brushed, soft as velvet, over and down. He stuck out his tongue and traced the tiny ladybug in the hollow of her hipbone. “Here it is,” he whispered against her burning flesh, “that secret tattoo…”
The one only the right man is gonna see, she was thinking. Thinking it like a promise. A promise to him…
He slid his hands upward, so his thumbs touched her, parted her…
And then his mouth was there, covering her most private place. She moaned and tossed her head and put her hands up and back, palms flat, to press the door, lifting her hips to him, giving him greater access.
Oh, that, oh yes… His mouth covering her—that was heaven. A little bit of heaven right there in the cab of an old green pickup truck. His tongue dipped in and then slid along all the soft, wet surfaces. He found the little nub where her pleasure was greatest. And…
Oh, she had never…
Never even imagined.
It was…
She was…
Opening, her whole body quivering in a quicksilver rushing sensation, one that started as a faint, shivering glow and grew brighter, more powerful, shimmering its way all through her, moving outward, growing brighter. Stronger. Bigger.
She moaned and she cried out as a hot, joyous pulsing began.
And right then, when the whole world seemed to fly away, when she tossed her head and moaned so deep and pushed against the door to help her press herself closer to his pleasuring mouth…
Right then…
He slid up her body and entered her in one hard, tearing thrust.
Chapter Five
They cried out together—she at the sudden, searing pain, he in pure shock. He stared down into her face and she let out a second cry. He looked…so hurt. Hurt much worse than she was, injured some deep and awful way.
“Starr…” He said her name as if she had done something terrible to him, as if she’d pulled out a knife and stabbed him to the heart.
She couldn’t bear it, the wounded accusation in his eyes. She reached for him, pulling his mouth down to hers.
He resisted, his upper body tight, scorning her clutching hands, even while his hips stayed pressing into her—as if the part of him that was most male couldn’t bear to leave her.
“Beau,” she whispered. “Beau, please…”
She felt him quiver and a strange hot surge of triumph shot through her, at her power over him. He couldn’t hold out against her….
With a long, shuddering sigh, he gave in. His mouth covered hers and he kissed her, a plundering, hungry kind of kiss. And down there, deep inside, where he stretched her tender body beyond its virgin limits, he was pulsing, kind of twitching. Through the burning pain, she felt him spilling into her as he pressed so tight against her, as if, since that first painful thrust, he didn’t dare to move.
With a low, lost groan, he went lax and heavy on top of her—but only for a second or two. Then he levered back. She let out another cry at the pain of him pulling free. He reached for the glove box, snapped it open and yanked out a small box of tissues.
He swiftly wiped himself dry and rose fully to his knees to pull up his Wranglers and fasten them. Then he turned his attention to her. She felt…really bad then. Really bad and really naked. He’d backed toward the driver’s side enough that she could draw her legs together. She tried that. He caught her right knee before it could meet the left.
He swore. “You’re bleeding…”
“Listen,” she said between clenched teeth—and then had no idea what to say next. So she crossed her arms over her breasts and scooted back enough that she could swing her stocking feet to the floorboards. She bent and started snatching up her clothes.
“Starr…” The tenderness in his voice made her pause, clutching her shirt and her bra, bent over to cover as much as she could. “Starr.” He touched her back—a tentative caress, questioning as his worried tone.
She dropped the clothes and put her hands over her face. A dry sob welled up. She tried to cut it off, but it shook her body anyway.
“Starr.” He clasped her bare shoulder in a steadying kind of way, his hand so warm and reassuringly firm. “Damn my soul to hell, I am so sorry…” She pressed her hands to her burning cheeks, sucked in one long breath and let it out with slow care as he slid over right next to her. “Come on. Come here…” He took both her shoulders and gathered her into him.
With another dry sob, she surrendered to his embrace, cuddling in close, burying her face in the dusting of springy hair on his broad chest.
He stroked her hair, rubbed her back. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’ll be okay…” He rubbed his chin against her hair, whispered, “I swear to you. I would have stopped, if I had known, if you had only said something…”
She turned her mouth to his shoulder, brushed a kiss against one of the white welts of scar tissue and breathed her confession against that scar. “I know you would have…”
He put a finger under her chin, coaxing her head up and asked, in a whisper both tender and slightly bewildered, “Then damn it, why didn’t you tell me?”
She smiled at that, a quivery smile, and she thought of what women always say at times like that one. “If you don’t know, I’m sure not going to tell you….”
He was shaking his head. “I just don’t get it.”
She put a hand against his warm chest, felt his heart beating under her palm. “Oh, I think you do. Somewhere in here, I think you really do.”
He frowned. But he didn’t argue—or admit that he understood. He only asked, sky-blue eyes darkened with concern, “Does it…still hurt?”
She scrunched up her nose at him. “Yeah. It stings….”
He bent his head for a last, quick kiss. “Come on, then.” He hauled a blanket from behind the seat. “Let’s go on down to the creek for a few minutes….”
He gathered her clothes and his shirt off the floorboards, shook them out and laid them over the back of the seat as she put on her boots and wrapped the blanket, sarong-style, around her. The blood—only a little bit, really—had dried to tackiness between her thighs. She tried to be careful not to get it on the blanket, though the dark plaid probably wouldn’t show the stain.
“Ready?” he asked, as she tucked the blanket in place. She nodded. He got out and came around and opened her door for her, putting out a hand to guide her down. His arm firm and steadying around her shoulders, he led her out from under the shadowing branches of the tree.
The night was so beautiful, clear and cool, the stars sparkling like a million tiny crystal beads twinkling on a black velvet gown.
She stopped, entranced, staring up at that glorious sky. “Oh, Beau. What a night, huh?”
He made a grudging noise of agreement, his mind obviously on moving along. “Come on.”
The little pointy heels on her boots were not made for walking in the dirt. She tried to tread carefully, but still she stumbled.
&
nbsp; “Silly boots,” he muttered.
She poked him with an elbow. “I love these boots.”
“Here.” He scooped her up against his warm, hard chest.
“Well,” she said, twining her hands around his neck. “This is nice…” She laid her head against his shoulder and thought about the lie she’d told herself the week before—the one about how she wouldn’t be jumping his bones.
That made her giggle.
“Stop squirming,” he commanded, so she swallowed that giggle down—but allowed herself a smug little smile, nonetheless.
It wasn’t far, back under the shadowing trees. The creek wound past, shimmering in starlight, catching the waning shape of the moon, reflecting it back at them, a shape that wavered with the current. He eased her to her feet and she sat on the bank to take off her boots and her socks. Once her feet were bare, he helped her up again and led her down to the water’s edge.
She shivered when she waded into it, wrapping her arms around herself. “Brr…”
“Better let me take the blanket.”
There were trees on either side of the bank, sheltering them from sight should someone drive by out on the narrow dirt road, or even come riding through the pasture beyond the fence on the far side. She sent him a sideways glance. “Promise you won’t look.”
“You have my sworn word.”
He said it so seriously, she couldn’t help laughing. “Oh, Beau. I was just teasing—I mean, it’s not like you haven’t pretty much seen all there is to see.” She giggled some more and shivered as the icy water lapped at her ankles.
He was looking worried again. “I’d better help you.” He dropped to the bank and yanked off his boots and socks and then came in with her.
She shivered some more. “Your jeans are getting wet.”
“Don’t worry about that—here.” He went behind her and she turned her head to watch what he was up to. “Give me the blanket…”
She held on to it tighter. “Only if you’ll get that look off your face.”
He scowled. “What look?”
“That one.” She pointed at him over her shoulder. “Really serious. Downright grim.”
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